Málaga 2013

Business Meeting, Report of the Proceedings

June 20, 2013, Málaga, Spain

Kaisa Miettinen chaired the meeting. (The number of members of the Society attending the meeting was about 180.)

For Report

Members and Directory

Prof. Kaisa Miettinen, the President of the Society, informed that the Society has no membership fees and wished new members welcome. There are currently 1912 members. Those who are interested in becoming a member of the Society are asked to go to the members section of the webpage, and submit the application form. It is especially important to have a valid email address. The email address is the key identifier of each member, and thus, it cannot be changed online. To change the email address, members should directly contact the Secretary of the Society, at secretary@mcdmsociety.org.

Special Issues

Prof. Kaisa Miettinen informed that four journals will be publishing special issues containing (but not limited to) papers presented at the MCDM 2013 Conference:

The next MCDM conference

In its meeting on Wednesday June 19, 2013, the Executive Committee accepted the proposal to organize the next MCDM conference in 2015 in Hamburg, Germany by Dr. Martin J. Geiger. Further details about the dates and other issues will appear in the webpage of the conference: http://logistik.hsu-hh.de/MCDM-2015.

Officers of the Society

Prof. Kaisa Miettinen informed about the following decisions of the Executive Committee related to the officers of the Society:

Francisco Ruiz will continue as the Secretary of the Society

Theodor Stewart has been appointed as the Chairman of the Awards Committee.

Jyrki Wallenius has been appointed as Chairman of the MCDM Doctoral Dissertation Award Committee

MCDM Doctoral Dissertation Competition

Prof. Kaisa Miettinen informed that the MCDM Doctoral Dissertation Competition will continue in the following conferences. The new chairman of the MCDM Doctoral Dissertation Competition ommittee has agreed to present to the Executive Committee of the Society a written proposal of the procedure to select the committee, the documents to be asked to the applicants, and the procedure to select the finalists and the award winner. Further information will be announced in the newsletter and at the website of the Society.

Elections related to open offices at the Executive Committee

Prof. Kaisa Miettinen informed that four officers of the executive committee were finishing their terms in MCDM2013 (Jim Dyer, Matthias Ehrgott, José Rui Figueira and Roman Słowinski). She has chaired the Elections Committee. Besides the candidates nominated by the Committee, the members of the Society were able to nominate candidates.

The voting will be electronic. The members of the Society will receive further information about the voting procedure by email before the elections, which will take place from mid July to mid August 2013. All those who were members of the Society before the conference or joined by July 10, 2013, can vote. The voting will be an approval voting.

The following Summer School will be in 2016, and the venue is still to be decided.

Electronic Newsletter of the Society

Prof. Kaisa Miettinen informed that the Electronic Newsletter of the International Society on MCDM is published twice a year, and made available to all members of the Society. The editor of the newsletter is Johannes Siebert, who welcomes contributions. In particular, doctoral students are encouraged to write in the Newsletter or join the editorial team. The Newsletter Editor can be reached at newsletter@mcdmsociety.org.

Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

Prof. Kaisa Miettinen informed that the journal has maintained a regular publication schedule on time for the past three years. The publishers and the editorial board are still working towards listing with the indexing agencies. All researchers are encouraged to submit high quality papers, cite relevant papers and to get involved in the reviewing tasks, in order to support the journal.

For Voting

Amendments to the Bylaws

Prof. Kaisa Miettinen informed of several proposals of amendments to the Bylaws of the Society. According to the procedure for amendments described in the bylaws, "proposals for adoption of new Bylaws, or repeal, or amendment of these Bylaws shall be presented to the membership of the Society at a Business Meeting. On approval by a majority of the voting members of the Society present, the Secretary shall prepare and make available the proposed amendments within 30 days of the next Business Meeting. A majority of the members of the Society voting shall be necessary for adoption of the changes to the Bylaws".

The following proposals were presented:

In Article III, Section 1 (about the Executive Committe), it is proposed that the Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis is a member of the Executive Committee.

In Article III, Section 5 (about the Secretary), it is proposed to add that the term of the Secretary shall be four years, allowing renewal.

It is proposed to add a new Section in Article III, about the MCDM Doctoral Dissertation Competition Committee. The following items should be included:

The Executive Committee shall appoint the chair of the MCDM Doctoral Dissertation Competition Committee, among the members of the Executive Committee for a two-year term.

The MCDM Doctoral Dissertation Award Committee members (maximum four) will be proposed by the Chair and appointed by the Executive Committee after the applications have been received till the next International Conference.

The Committee shall designate a maximum of four finalists for each International Conference, and they will have their registration fees waived.

The amount of the award shall be decided by the Executive Committee, and granted by the Society.

In Article VIII, Section (about the Procedure for Amendments), it is proposed that the Secretary shall prepare and make available the proposed amendments within 30 days after the Business Meeting where the amendments have been approved. After that, a majority of the members of the Society voting shall be necessary for adoption of the changes to the Bylaws.

All the proposals were unanimously approved by the members of the Society present in the Business Meeting. The Secretary shall prepare and make available the proposed amendments within 30 days of the next Business Meeting, for final approval in the Business Meeting which will take place in Hamburg in 2015.